I'm really turning away from getting upgrades as a comm now. I much prefer to get MT and hand out heavy weapons asap. Then I suppose I have the choice of upgrades or HA+JP. Upgrades will cost me 180 to reasearch. JP+HA will cost me 115. TBH the HA will make up for the lack of armour ups, so no need for them. The heavy weapons will make up for the lack of ammo ups, so no need for them.

I'll admit there are problems in that it can be harder to control res without upgrades. So unless you have marines that can shoot, your screwed. At the point where your team has the heavy weps though, you should be able to control the map as you see fit.

............................................................

DEVIL!

Look, man. Let's think about this from a logical point of view.

Okay, standard MT rush.

1 IP
1 Armory
1 obs--> MT

That's 85 res. Now you can cap another RT. It'll be about 2+ minutes into the game when MT kicks in and you gain map control for about 2 minutes until fades start showing up. Somewhere around this time, you advanced your armory, so that's another 30 res down.

And then you get screwed. You need 80 res to get your prototype lab functioning, and then 20 res per marine after that. Even then, fades will rape your marines, since they take 2 hits to kill. If you dole out shotguns, a competent fade is still able to blink in, swipe once or twice, blink out. You can't recover your weapons on an offensive, you'll be forced to play defensive until you get enough res to cover both the Proto/Ha stuff, and give out the equipment for them.

I'd rather have the upgrades. While level 3 upgrades are debateable for cost effectiveness, you should at least get 1/2 (armor, weapons) upgrade in every game.

Upgrades are realitively permanent while HA/HMG can be easily lost.

Your laying alot on marine weapon skills. This might be a viable strategy with talented players ,but can quickly come back to bite you when you've lost your initial investment of resources.

Silence?

I would love to play against a comm that doesn't upgrade.

FUN SIZE MARINES!(Get it? They only take 2 biteS!!! omg Im so clever!!11)

HMGs sound great, but I would rather have a level 3 shotgun.

That might cut it in clan matches, but mt rush just doesnt cut it in public play.

**** ShotgunEd has been kicked from the CC ****
**** Rapier7 has been promoted to Commander ****
**** ShotgunEd orders are to run and build res ****
**** BobtheALien LvL3-shotgunned lastHive ****
**** OggWraith LvL3-Pistols kolokol****
**** Gargamel smokes in RR ****

Frankly, i'd rather have 3/3 vanilla marines out there than 0/0 HA HMGs.

Without upgrades, you simply cannot hold ground: Your marines die within two bites, and they just can't fight back. If they can't fight back, you can't hold res nodes. If you don't hold res nodes, you don't have enough res to tech up. If you don't have res to tech up, your strategy is useless.

While MT is an extremely useful upgrade to have, it is by all means no substitute for arms lab upgrades.

Even if your marines can shoot, there is nothing they can do against a fade besides tickle them with those feathers you call "LMGs".

I've seen many games won with little or no upgrades, but this requires quick and effective total domination of the opposing team; something that is hard to achieve if you're playing against half-competent players.

If I was on a team with guys that had spot-on shooting, and had mad dodging and staying-alive skills, I would love to have a com with the balls to try this.

This is so risky, but it almost makes sense. HMGs and HAs, even not-upgraded, tear up skulks, lerks, and gorges, and they make fades think twice. As long as all those heavy armor guys are like PIN-POINT PERFECT with their welding on quickswitch though, those 200-armor heavys are going to be down near the 80's before they know it.

It can be done though, certainly, if you're better than the alien team in just about every category.

If I remember, you need an arms lab in the first place to put down the proto. So you're going to end up with an arms lab at some point. Armor1 really REALLY helps before you have heavys. Just get it and ignore the arms lab from that point I guess? I love it when the commander armory rushes and gets LMGs out there for the skulks and fades. Heavy weapons REALLY help, and with heavys, you have all the armor you need even at zero ups.

Yeah, if you lose the heavys, you're screwed though. That's why this isn't great if there are onos in the field or the second hive is up.

Remind me to eject you from the comm chair if i ever play with you.

Everytime you see skulk just massacre your marines. everytime you see your 4 hvys die to an onos charging straight at them. You'll realize just how wrong not getting upgrades is.

hmm yeah i propose the best alien strat to counter this uber leet no upgrade tactic. we all go lerk asap and drop no nodes, no chambers.
yes.
of course or wings will compensate for our fragile skulkish legs, and our gas for our parasie atack
gg.
freaking retarrdddd
no upgrades go go handicap!

Hey, Hey. This strategy is not a total bust. It works. I've seen it work. It just doesn't work often, because its EXTREMELY hard to pull off. You have to have complete trust in your marines and your marines have to place thier complete trust in the comm.

When it DOES work, its still hard to win because of the complete lack of upgrades.

The win is the most satisfying, though.

Yes, if you are heading for early HA/hmg, then upgrades are not so necessary.. But a1 and perhaps even g1 are still worth the minimal res they cost..

Lito: It works when the alien team sucks and you have a complete vet stack on your side.

It's a bad strategy, don't defend it, only flame it.

This will never work, you need SOME upgrades. Maybe only get 2/2 but still man, you need some.

Shotgun-Ed matey just stay out of the chair from now on tbh
You've lost your mind somewhere between fading.

No UPs? LOL! Even with UPs marines die alot...

MT rushing works, but theres no reason on gods green earth to skip out on 1/1 upgrades. They're cheap and easy to research - and even a 2/1 while you research pump out HAs. Beyond that I will agree, that they can be highly superflous or hindering to early expansion - especially Armor 1 though there is absolutely no excuse for not getting as soon as you can within your tech choices. Not to mention its a prerequisite for your Prototype anyway.

Fact of the matter is, theres 3 generic ways to spend earlygame res :
- A1 rush (45 res - leaves 25) [research : 60]
- MT rush ( 60 res - leaves 10) [research : 90]
- AA rush (30 res - leaves 40) [research : 180]

All assuming you build an IP/Armory too. Then of course theres the node rush, costing as much as you're willing to risk or +15 per node the aliens can walk towards.

When we look at this, we can conclude a few things - both popular strategies, a1 and MT, are so because they provide a strong advantage in the earlygame. Most of you can from experience probably also say that, unless you're phaserushing someplacece, Motion Tracking aids you more in map control than Armor 1. Motion tracking infact lets your marines be super-aggressive for those up to 150 seconds between the research and Fades appearing - its likely they can capture every node minus the secondary and primary hive with some basic coordination.

By the 3 minute mark the latest, your armslab should be active of course, and researching Armor 1 - to be there in time for Fades, when the days of nigh-invincible and allseeing marines are over and they'll be taking hits on a regular basis again. In turn you should use the newly gained ressources to go on the offensive in a concentrated spot (as this is by experience the best way to deter fades, or lower their active time in the field - forcing them to fight uphill versus 80% of your team).

And this is where the subtle benefit of an MT rush becomes apparent - when done correctly, it can swing a bad match where your team barely managed to leave base around, gain a lot of momentum in a short time and possibly even keep it if you play smart with your counter-offense.

The main reasons to not go MT rushing are :
- Earlier A1
- 2 ressource nodes buildable at the start instead of one
- allows for better offense in the under-2-minute department



All in all, its a strong strategy - and the dent it makes in earlygame offense is really its one fatal flaw. Ironically, its main strength is to recover from just that. An A1/denial win is still easier, because it usually doesn't involve a second Hive ever going live - but also so much tougher to pull off early on.

I love getting abussed it makes me all warm and tingly. The fact that I need the arms lab to build the proto is a good point. If I have to build it, then I may as well get A1.

Someone said

"That would work only if you have a team with exellent aim. Besides the heavy armor is not very helpfull without armor upgs."

Armour upgrades for HA is an advantage but each upgrade only gives 1 extra bite worth of armour, so not that great.

With the adition of the dots on the map, MT is doubly as useful as it was. The com can now tell exactly what is happening. He can warn easier of incoming attacks, send marines to where aliens are not. MT is as useful to marines as it is to the commander.

Every upgrade at lvl2 = 1HA+SG+Welder

For discussion... are 5 HA SG welders at a1 w1 more useful than 3 HA SG welders at a2 w2 or a mere 1 HA SG welder at a3 w3.

What I've learnt about NS clan games, is that as marines you have to be pretty quick and aggresive to stand a chance of winning, and I feel you can be more succesful at this if you have the HA and heavy weapons earlier and with more of them.

If 3 HA's with SG's or HMG's can't take on a fade with lvl 0 weapons then to be honest I think they'd struggle even with lvl 3 weapons. I know you'll all say the fades will arrive before HA is handed out and its true. But once they do appear it won't be long before you get HA and heavy weapons.

So I'll admit, not getting a1 w1 is probably a suicidal move and the point is duely noted.

ShotgunEd, you're not listening... Armor/Weapon upgrades are so powerful that your Arms Lab should be running the ENTIRE time from after it's built til either the game ends or you get W3/A3. Upgrades are just that damn good and cost efficient.

Your example of the HAs with varying levels of upgrades is irrelevant because that's only counting 150 res.. you'll have much more than that to work with. Whats better, 5 1/1 upgraded HA or 5 3/3 upgraded HA? That's a more realistic comparison. More upgrades = more nodes = more res = more HA... Even though JPs rock HA

I don't know why everyone always says "Upgrade until 3/3". Frankly, 2/2 is a good place to stop. 2/2 upgrades are cost efficient and take a reatively short time to upgrade. To get to the third tier levels, it costs a whopping 40 res each and more than a minute to upgrade.

I consider 3/3 luxeries, but frankly if you're not winning with 2/2, then 3/3 isn't going to help you so substantially that you'll dominate the game.

the 80 res is better spent teching up IMO

Most of the guys in this topic missed the main point of the guy who started it: MT rush with HA and JP. I see all of the risk involved in it, but to get highly advanced weaponry and armor against a vanilla fade means that the alien just wasted a lot of res. The marines will have no problem, if they've got reliable accuracy, in taking out the one alien hive. Even if a stray gorge starts to put a second hive up, a JP will quickly discover it, and soon after the game shall end.

While I like the idea quite a bit, I can't see it being used in a pub.

if you can't see it working in a pub, where would it work? (certainly not in clanplay) LA/LMG marines with no upgrades can easily get raped by skulks with good teamwork, and by the time fades come out you'll have no res nodes... you won't be able to get HA or JP.

3/3 owns because it means you can take 4 hits from a Fade with no meds and you get the ~8.5% extra damage... which is nice especially for killing fades.

Im pretty sure HA rush works on pub, I tested it yesterday on caged and eclipse, all 9 member team was in HA at 6 minute (EC) and 7-8 minute (caged) and won game at 8 minute (eclipse) and 12 minute (caged - big map and 2 hives).
This is the list of things and upgrades we had:
- 1 IP
- arms lab with armor 1 upgrade
- upgraded armory
- proto lab with HA


Nothing else, we didnt even have PG tech MT or other things, yes I had to defend base alone against fade/skulks during hive attack but with HA/hmg its easy to defend base.

And no .. enemy team was not newbie (especially on caged)

The example with the HA is highly relavent. Obviously HA with a3 w3 is better than HA with a1 w1 thats just a fact. However where you would spend 30+30+40+40= 140 res getting upgrades I would save that res and hand out roughly 4 full suits of HA with mixed weapons.

So in my game, I would make the move on one of the alien hives with 4 highly beefed up marines, that can dish out some real damage and have high staying power due to HA and welders, where as with upgrades I'd be assaulting a hive with LMG's and no HA that will get torn apart by lerk gas and hit & run attacks by fades. Gas does not hurt HA, fades get torn apart by SG's and HMG's and bile bombing gorges can be kept at bay with a GL. Equipment is the counter to alien life forms, not upgrades.

Marines can win long games, however aliens tend to get stronger as a game progresses with more fades, lerks and onos. So to consistently win as marines you need to make your winning moves relativly early to ensure you face minimal alien threats. This is what the tactic is about. It gives the marines equipment that will give them the edge over the aliens.

...thats the theory.

Here's the maths...

The weapon upgrades give you a total of 30% dmg increase. A HMG does double the damage of an LMG, so a HMG gives you a 100% dmg increase over an LMG. As an example, 90 res can be spent on the weapon upgrades giving your marines that poxy 30% increase, or you can hand out 6 HMG's giving those marines a 100% increase. Even if its 10v10 the average increase in dmg is 66.6% (((6*100)+(3*0))/9) where as upgrades will only give you 30% at best.

Armour upgrades costing again 90 res, will allow your marines to take 4 bites worth of damage. HA at lvl 0 will allow your marines to take 8 bites worth of damage (I think its more in fact, but I can't remember what it is sorry). So, HA is again twice as effective as armour upgrades, giveing you a 100% in your ability to take damage with the advantage of being gas proof. As an example, 90 res can be spent on armour upgrade giving your marines a 100% increase in their damage taking ability, or you can hand out 6 HA giving those marines a 400% increase. Even if its 10v10 the average increase is 266% (((6*400)+(3*0))/9) where as upgrades will give you a 200% increase.

To sum up...

W1 + W2 + W3 = 30% dmg increase.
HMG = 100% dmg increase.

A1 + A2 + A3 = 200% health increase.
HA = 400% health increase.

Equipment is 3 times as effective than upgrades for weapons, and twice as effective than upgrades for armour.

I suppose you can generaly only equip your marines once maybe twice and so loosing them can mean the end of the game. Whilst you can constantly send waves of w3a3 marines at hives without it costing you anything. In terms of the timeing of it all I'm not sure there's much difference between obtaining HA and obtaining a3w3. Its what 4.5 mins with 1 arms lab or 9 with 2, costing either 205 res or 230 res. The armoury takes what 3 mins to upgrade and is it 2.5 for HA? I don't know the numbers. A total cost of 10+30+25+40+40 = 145res. Its significantly cheaper and probably quicker to get to the equipment stage than it is to get all the upgrades.

In terms of the 2nd hive, I'm trying to never allow that to go up, either by constant pressure at 2 locations or sg rushing the hive as soon as I know its going up. The tactics not about only spending res on equipment, its playing your same style of commanding but taking the equipment route in the tech tree over upgrades which really aren't very effective.

The armour upgrades are however the more effective so I suppose a reasonable tactic is to upgrade the armoury straight off, get a1 a2 a3 and then hand out HMG's and welders. That can all be done in at best 5 minutes, probably before the hive goes up and just in time for a lot of fades. Weapon upgrades really make so little difference that I'd probably upgrade hand grenades and cat packs before w1.

I'm trying to discuss this and I don't want you guys to think I'm telling you whats wrong and right I just express my ideas as they are.

You can have HA tech at 5:30- 6:00 (todays real figures) and attack on hive on the way at 7:00. Chances that at 5:30 second hive is up are extremely slim... Marines can easilly hold map early on against skulks.
Curiously we today lost a game of Ha rush on eclipse because 1 good fade in hive with skulks was able to kill 5ha :-)

Did your HAs have heavy weapons?

One silver lining in the early HA heavy weaps strategy if it fails, as long as your marines constantly pick up the dropped welder and heavy weapon, you only need to give a respawning marine a heavy armor suit and send him on his way back to pick his stuff up. If you can do this, it makes losing individual HAs a little cheaper by 20 or 25 res a shot, since their weapon and welder will still be where they dropped it, or being hot-potato'ed by the other heavys to make sure they don't disappear into thin air.

If you lose more than half the heavys in 30 seconds or less at any point, the game is almost guaranteed to be over. This is an all-or-nothing strategy if there ever was one. If you get a thrill deep down inside from betting it all on one shot, no matter what the actual outcome turns out to be, you should try this.

The important point remains, this strategy CAN work, mathematically. I generally feel safer holding an HMG with 200 armor than I do looking at the lower right hand corner and seeing the armor vest and pistol icons get more dangerous looking. The way I see it, upgrades help light armor marines marginally, but not so much that they can't still easily die, and they are overkill for higher echelon equipment. HMGs and HAs don't NEED upgrades, TBH, they have more than enough potential capability for destruction and survival even with base-line stats. Equipment is a much more direct way to counter better alien lifeforms. 2 HMGs VS Fade is a lot easier than organizing 2 LMGs VS Fade, and HMG/shotgun combos are the best counter to Onos there is.

Kent raises the point about 2 hive skulks. This is worth examining. However, provided that you as the commander make sure the aliens can't get a second hive, low-upgrade HAs and HMGs are usually more than enough against 1 hive aliens. As long as you kill them the moment you see them, everything works out and nobody takes more than a few quickly welded bites.

You can upgrade the armory the moment it's built, can't you? Why not do it the second it gets built at like 0:15 seconds game time? Is that a commander mistake or something? Kent said something about the aliens being able to put up a hive before you finish the armory and it being completed before the proto finishes. I don't dispute the numbers, the armory takes for EVER. Is this for small games like you see in clan matches, or would rushing HA work better in 8V8 and above, where alien res is slower? I know that the larger the game, the stupider strategies you can play with as marines, generally.

The thing upgrades have in their favor is that when you buy them, you buy them for the whole team, and everyone gets them when they spawn, free. If you're on huge servers with more than 8 marines running around, upgrades and making sure your marines work in squads can be just as effective as better equipment. Yes, even at maximum, Weapon Level 3 only does 30% extra damage, but if you get three marines shooting a target, that's 90% extra damage, and it's almost like four vanilla marines were shooting the target.

Better equipment VS higher upgrades each have their own place. Armor 1 makes sense, it's a good upgrade to buy. Spend a mere 20 res once to add a 20 point boost to every respawning marine for the rest of the game, and with excellent medpacking on your part, your marines can survive FOUR BITES from very early in the game, if you always medpack them on the second bite. However, instead of slapping down 30 res for Weapons 2, think about whether it would pay off quicker if you spent that 30 res on say, two heavy machineguns for defense until you have time to get heavy armor suits or jetpacks or whatever. Nothing does better for marine defense of an area than having an HMG stand at the back of the room and open fire the moment something is too close to run away before dying. And the more aliens that your team kills, the more resource points you get for killing the aliens. HMGs will net you loads of money if you put them somewhere that they can shoot skulks all day. And HMGs are instantly deployed. You drop them to your best shooters, send them out, and they do way more damage way sooner than if you had purchased Weapons 2. But at the same time, if those HMG guys do something dumb, or just meet up against a better alien player and lose the HMGs somewhere that they can't go and get picked up again, you lose the money you spent on them, and unless the guys with the guns made enough money killing aliens to cover the cost of buying them the guns in the first place, you have less money than when you started, and nothing to show for it. If you had picked up Weapons 2 however, your whole team would have 20% more damage, and they would have it even if they died, unlike only two guys having all the firepower, and not being able to keep it if the guns get lost.

Upgrades and Equipment are two routes which a commander needs to keep in mind. You need to know your game, and know your team to know what to buy and how much to spend. Being a commander is like running a business. Spend your money to gain the most advantage over the enemy team. It's up to you to decide whether you want your team to have permanent upgrades, or temporary equipment.

Generally, the better the aim of the players, the more that buying guns for your best shooters and best team-players pays off. Upgrades are strategic, equipment is tactical. Every marine should know the difference between these two, especially the commander.

This is a cool topic about an interesting alternative strat, so it gets my vote of approval.

I like upgrades they can save you when all you got is an lmg. Besides I always die easyer with a hmg it seems.

On timing :
Swift correctly realised that standard tech (HA or JP) rushes will mean you build your Armory first thing into the game. An advanced armory takes 3 minutes to research, so roughly at 3:15 you've got th at AA. It will take you maybe half a minute with good coordination to build a protolab, and another 100 seconds (1:40) for HA, or 50 seconds for JPs.

Unless you're able to deny nodes, the Hive can start going up at about 3:30, approximately the same time you've finished your AA. A Hive takes 3 minutes to go active - so realisticly speaking, once you're done and have outfitted your HAs at a frantic pace, you've got 60 seconds to walk to the Hive and kill it, or face dealing with Umbra. In other words, unless the Aliens are gloriously stupid and/or bad, they'll be able to delay and dilute your plan enough to synch it up or put it behind the 2nd Hive going active. At that point, walking in on the Hive while its gaurded almost never works.

You still do have the ability to Siege though, and HAs while expensive, are a great counter to pretty much every conventional way to bust a siege, short of an Onos.

The short of it is, prototech is even more delayed than any upgrade, and that can hamper your earlygame - which is over all the most important. A strong earlygame on the otherhand can get you those HAs a mere minute or two later, with mapcontrol and a heavily delayed 2nd Hive alongside.

If you're owning the other team anyway, sure Licho. Then its mostly just a matter of style how you finish though.

You can just sit back and smoke crack if the alien team takes 6:30 or more to get a Fade, is unable to attack your nodes or even hold their secondary Hive and the accompanying nodes.

I think this is where MT comes into play. It boosts the early game so much that you can deny aliens a lot of the map. However if your going to have to upgrade the armoury straight off, MT is going to be delayed to the point where it will probably only be active at best 5 minutes, kind of damaging its effectiveness. So i'm wondering is it better to get MT on the go first and then upgrade the armoury.

One advantage of having that AA up is that instead of handing out say 4 SG's to deal with that fade, you can happily hand out 2 HMG's and a SG or just 1 of each and be considerably more deadly. Theres no point having the tech unless you use it.